Change doesn't happen overnight, at least it doesn't when you're trying to change habits that have been cultivated over years. If you've ever tried to help someone change their bad habits you'll be aware that if you try to change too much at once then they'll quite often fail, get disillousioned and give up. For me, I find I need to understand why the change is necessary and then make small steps. Over the past couple of years I've been making small steps to change for the better: I've all but cut out alcohol from my life, I've got my debt under control, I took up occasional 10Ks and have been trying to get the weight sorted.
Of the changes I've been making the weight has been a difficult one because it's required action on two fronts: exercise and better diet. I think I might have made the final change to help this. Over the past 6 months I've finally got my head around sensible eating and while there's a bit more work to do there it's pretty positive. The exercise has been a bit more of a challenge though. As much as I enjoy doing the 10Ks I've been hampered by low motivation for training in the gym or going running of an evening. It's far too easy to work a bit later and then come up with excuses for not working out.
It took a conversation on holiday to convince me that there was hope and that hope is in the form of BMF. I'll no doubt blog more about that soon but suffice to say it's a pretty intensive class that takes an hour and is out doors whatever the weather. The part of the conversation that convinced me was the reminder that I had made progress a few years back and had dropped a lot of weight. Plus it was pointed out the results that current BMF-ers had achieved in the past few months.
The final part of the fresh start (and this is going to take a bit more work) is to sort out the issues at work that are stressing me and to cut out the dead wood from my life. The latter should've been done years ago. As a result I've got rid of a load of phone numbers and people from MSN & facebook that should've been deleted a long time ago. You can't move on while you're still living in the past!
I'm quite excited about the next couple of months. I'm going to get fitter, I'm going to do a 10K in under 1 hour, I'm going to be lighter, I'm going to meet new people and I'm going to stop letting work get on top of me. In addition I'm going to spend more time being a better friend to those whose friendship I appreciate.
